[gui-talk] Fwd: my initial impressions of the turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM

[Steve Pattison]

 From:    Chris Skarstad toonhead5 at verizon.net
 To:      pc-audio at pc-audio.org

		A while ago, I had asked about buying an external sound card, and I 
eventually chose the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM.
This card is tiny, weighing in only  a few ounces, and it kind of 
looks like a cigarette lighter at first glance.
It has 4 audio jacks 2 on each end of the card, the ones I've paid 
the most attention to are the microphone, and the headphone jack, 
which are on the same end.

This card also sports 2 stereo mics, a green LED light that blinks 
when audio is present, and stays solid when none is playing.  So if 
you have some usable sight this might take a bit of getting used to.

I have a set of speakers hooked up to the card which handles my music 
and windows sounds, and I have Window-eyes 7.01 routed to my laptop's 
internal Sigmatel card.  So I now have 2 sets of speakers instead of 
one.    This allows me to have more control over the volume of each one.
I have 2 volume controls to use now, but if I want to hear the speech 
over the music more, it's easier for me, because I can keep the music 
at the same level now.

As far as instalation goes, I had another friend of mine helping me, 
and we learned a somewhat valuable lesson that I'm sure most people 
probably know either through just being technically savvy, or having 
the same experience we had.  If you're going to install this card, be 
sure to hook the card *directly* into your laptop or desktop's USB 
ports, do not use a USB hub. If you do, the driver's won't install 
properly, because the card can't draw enough power.  The card is 
recognized, but not to the same point as it would be via a regular 
straight USB connection.  So make sure you have a free USB port handy.
    To install it, we first inserted the cd that came with the 
card.  If you're using window-eyes, you'll have to use your mouse 
pointer, numpad plus pressed twice, and then you use your numpad 2 
and 8 keys to arrow down to where it says setup.  At that point, 
press your left mouse button and the software will install.  Then, 
when prompted, please insert the cable into the card, and the other 
end into the USB port.

You may lose speech after pressing yes at this point, but this can be 
fixed.  It's a good bet that the card is now active, so what you'll 
need to do is plug a pare of headphones or speakers into the 
headphone jack. If you hear speech, you're good to go.  The headphone 
jack is located on the top right handside of the card, you'll feel a 
circular sort of socket or plug with ridges, and just to the right of 
that, that's your headphone jack.  The jack to the left of that one 
is your microphone jack.  When you plug a headset mic or any other 
mic into that jack, the stereo mics on the card itself are muted, so 
for the least confusing results, I would say you might want to have 
something plugged into that jack all the time.

Initially, the software tried to install the necessary driver for the 
card to function properly, but I had to reboot a couple of times to 
get the process to work properly. Hey, I'm new to this and it was a 
learning experience.  So the driver installed and all, at this point, 
seems to be working well.  As for the SRM control pannel  program, it 
is definitely not very speech friendly, not without a lot of mousing 
around. and even then, some of the screens look mighty 
confusing.  So  the best way to customize things is to probably stick 
to using the regular Windows volume control.  That will allow ou to 
set things how you want them.  Overall, I'm very pleased with the 
card!  The install was a bit touch and go because, as I said we 
weren't sure why things weren't working but after I remembered that I 
had been using a hub, and I plugged the card directly into my laptop 
USB port, that's when things vastly improoved.  Hope this helps 
anyone looking to buy a card like this. Hopefully it'll help you 
avoid any pitfalls along the way and you'll have your new card up and 
running in no time!

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963